


A Mermaid Has No Tears

by writteninhaste



Series: Never Quite Eden [1]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Mythology, F/M, Gen, Mythology - Freeform, european mythology, magical creatures!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2014-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-18 06:40:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1418656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writteninhaste/pseuds/writteninhaste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Constance is a mermaid and Bonacieux stole her tail.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Mermaid Has No Tears

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org/774.html?thread=937734#cmt937734) on [bbcmusketeerskink](http://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org/774.html) over on dreamwidth.

The song of the sea pumps in her veins. Constance can hear the crash of the waves, taste the salty tang of seaweed. She can feel the ebb and flow of the tide in her belly, in her chest. She is a fish, caught on the hook, and with every pull of the line she stumbles one step closer to suffocation – starving for oxygen in the open air. Six years she has languished on the shore – trapped within a tomb of brick and mortar – whilst her husband congratulates himself for capturing this prize. 

How foolish she had been: young and reckless and enamoured with the world above the waves. Her father, her sisters – everyone had warned her of the dangers. Go up only at night they said; go up only when the humans are sleeping. Never leave your tail unguarded; never, never let it out of your sight.

But the night had been warm, the stars clear and bright, and Constance had been careless. The lights of Le Havre were a distant shimmer, the great bulk of the merchant ships rising like sleeping giants from the swell of the sea. No humans ever came this way, and Constance had thought she was safe. She had chased the dappled moonlight across rock-pools and wet sand – chasing the scuttling night crabs making their ways back to their holes. She had left her tail unattended and when she had returned he was holding it.

She can still remember his little reptilian grin when he realised what sort of treasure he held. She can remember his gaze sweeping over her skin – damp and naked, salt beginning to dry in flakes on her breast and the edge of her hips. 

He’d walked away, and she had been forced to follow, feet bruised and bleeding against the rough ground of the road that led to the harbour. He had left her naked and shivering until they reached the edge of the port. Then he had thrown her his cloak and led her through the stinking streets like a dog.

She tried to kill him that night. She stole a knife from his supper and gripped the handle until her knuckles went white with the pressure. Her tail was folded over his arm and he was still smiling that awful, smug, little grin. She had planned to wait until he fell asleep. She would take back her tail and run and run and run back to the sea. She would never come up on shore again.

But he never fell asleep. He stayed awake all night, watching. And Constance felt her courage failing. The thought of warm blood spilling over cooling skin left her stomach rolling. She gave him back the knife and in the morning let him dress her in a human woman’s clothes and take her back to Paris.

He butchered her tail the next day – tanned it to a leather hide – and presented it to the Captain of the Musketeers as a cloak to keep off the rain. Constance lay in a sick bed for three days, feeling as though she had been turned inside-out.

The Garrison became something of a haunt for her, after that. With a metal ring on her finger and her limbs weighed down with cotton and lace, she would follow her husband whenever he had business with those men, hoping to catch a glimpse of her old skin.

She never did. Bonacieux would not venture out in the rain. If Treville wore her tail as a cloak, she never saw it. 

In time, the open wound became a dull ache. It festered and would not heal, but still she hoped, that by some miracle, she might reclaim her tail. Perhaps she could undo the stitching – fashion in anew into the shape it once wore. Perhaps, by God’s grace, she might yet be a mermaid again.


End file.
